


Absence of Words

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 21:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10773099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: This was how it had always been. Long talks without words. Moments alone stolen out of time. Tiny anchors drawn from an ocean of tears never allowed to wash onto shore.





	Absence of Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TauriLucisCaelum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TauriLucisCaelum/gifts).



> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/160121620697/letting-go-hurts-a-lot-ignoct) for [tauriofthestorm](http://tauriofthestorm.tumblr.com/) from [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159638211212/five-word-prompts)

“Letting go hurts… a lot.”

Ignis knew this about him. When Noctis loved something, he clung hard and fast to it. He closed it deep within his heart, as far down as he could keep it away from the Crown that threatened to take it from him. But even that wasn’t deep enough, it seemed. The locked door inside of him wasn’t kept shut tight enough to protect his father from Niflheim.

No one knew what to do when they read the headline. No one knew what to say when they rushed up to the overlook and saw their home ornamented with Niflheim warships across the river. Saw, without even having to hear Cor tell them, that the King was dead. The Wall was gone. That was proof in-and-of itself. But the reality of what its absence meant didn’t settle over Noctis until the phone rang.

Until the Marshal said, with forced bluntness, that the Prince was orphaned to a kingdom of ashes.

None of them had a moment to grieve their losses before they were back in the Regalia. The most prevalent noise as they drove back onto the main road was Gladio’s thumbs bumping furiously against the screen of his phone, desperately searching for confirmation from anyone left who could tell him if his sister had survived the attack. They were caught on a strip of road where reception was spotty, and Gladio was wound into so tight a knot Ignis feared he would burst and break a window. The first gas station he saw, he pulled into, and let the Crownsguard leap out of the car to find a patch of service.

The three of them watched him pace around the parking lot through the windshield for a while before Prompto started to get restless in the passenger’s seat. Watching Gladio’s racing steps infected him with a need to get up and move. Or, at least, escape the deathly silence stifling the car’s interior. He muttered a vacant, “I’ll see if they have anything,” before he was out of the vehicle and into the shop.

The quiet that followed could kill just as effortlessly as Niflheim did. Ignis stared at Noctis’s reflection in the rearview mirror. His skin had paled to the whiteness of a corpse, as if he too had died with Regis in the capital. His eyes were hollow, looking sightlessly at the back of the driver’s seat.

Rarely were the two of them left alone since setting out from Insomnia. Far and few between had been the moments Ignis could slip into his old skin of being more than the Prince’s advisor. Where he could put down the appearances and just _be_ for Noctis like he used to.

The question had slipped past his lips as easily as his breath did.

“Are you alright, Noct?”

And the answer had come as it always had. A beat of silence, considering, drawing himself back outside of himself enough to speak in a voice as cracked as his broken heart. _“Letting go hurts… a lot.”_

He didn’t need to say anything else for Ignis to understand the depths of his pain. Letting go had been something Ignis could never teach him in their lessons. He didn’t think it was something that could be taught, really. It was an especially hard lesson for Noctis, who so desperately coveted the rare, chipped bits of the love he’d always craved. So much that he could never get rid of them when they were gone.

Ignis had been raised all of his life to guide the prince through all his trials, but this was one path that was just as lost to Ignis as it was to Noctis. He watched his lively blue eyes die a little bit more as every second passed, and there were no words he could say that could bring them back to life.

Ignis got out of the car, walked around, and joined Noctis in the back seat. Because when words failed, touch did not. Touch anchored Noctis like talk never had. He’d been tricked too much by words to trust them. People said things only because it was what they thought he wanted to hear. Only to gain something, rather than give any meaning to him.

So, it was a small brush against his arm. A gentle reminder of something tangible that Noctis could retreat to. It dragged his eyes a fraction towards Ignis, but they were too heavy for Noctis to lift to meet his. Ignis thumbed circles into the crook of his arm, patiently coaxing him out of himself enough to shift towards him. Drop his head against Ignis’s shoulder and open himself enough to allow his friend’s arm to hug around his back.

It took a little bit of the sting out of the silence. Noctis slowly melded to his side, a gradual, long exhale heaving past his lips. It wasn’t relief. Rather an infinitesimal gratitude for sharing in his grief. For letting him rest some of his hurt on Ignis’s shoulder.

This was how it had always been. Long talks without words. Moments alone stolen out of time. Tiny anchors drawn from an ocean of tears never allowed to wash onto shore.

It was a long time before Noctis regained enough strength to say anything else. And even when he did, it was a weak, lost, unsure question, and this time it was Ignis that didn’t know how to answer.

“What do I do?”

Noctis rarely asked for Ignis’s directions. He often laughed at them when Ignis tried to order him one way. As much as he bemoaned them in the moment, Ignis secretly loved the rebellion to them. He loved the reckless smile on the prince’s face as he went one way where Ignis went another. He loved the delighted laughter when Noctis accomplished something outside of Ignis’s expectations. Having him ask _hurt_ in a way Ignis had never expected it would.

“Keep walking forward,” he told him, because it was his job to have the answers, even when he didn’t. “It’ll be hard to take the first step, but when you do you don’t have to be afraid. Because I’ll be there to take it beside you. Always.”

That part wasn’t his job. That part wasn’t a lesson.

That part was just because he wanted to.


End file.
